[Forum] RE: Capitalization of Armies, battalions, and such

Exactly. Your reply makes me feel like I'm thinking right. Interestly, when I looked at books from the nineteenth century, they did spell it Thirty-Fifth. On another note, I believe most military historian authors prefer to use arabic numbers with regiments, etc. By spelling them out, this pads b

[Forum] hyphenation with "century"

The CMOS hyphenation guide has the following example: "late nineteenth-century politicians." But in the summary of the rule it also says that adjectival compounds are hyphenated before but not after a noun. If that is the case, why is there not a hyphen after "late" in the example???? Thanks.

[Forum] RE: "Mid" strictly per Chicago

[quote='DianeWalters' pid='34036' dateline='1505941484'] Shoot. I just took a test with that on there. I hyphenated it. It was mid-nineteenth century. I have never, ever, seen midnineteenth century. Never. I don't like it a bit. Pinky? Is this from the 16th or 17th version? I tried t

[Forum] Comma or ellipsis?

I'm working on a book that's a series of letters. Each one ends with a closing "Cordially." There is no signature. Would you go with "Cordially," or "Cordially..."? The comma is perhaps more accurate, as there would be a comma after the closing, but it just feels odd to end on a comma. On the other

[Forum] RE: Multiple hyphens in compound modifier containing "century"

Here are the two relevant sections in CMOS: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part2/ch07/psec089.html and https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part2/ch07/psec088.html Read them carefully and then see what you think. My own interpretation would be to use your first optio

[Forum] newspaper article with no title

I am trying to edit a citation of a late nineteenth-century newspaper "article" (seems more like a one-paragraph news brief) that does not have a title. In similar situations for previous publications, we've used the first few words of the article as the title (headline capitalization, quotation mar

[Forum] RE: Great Recession?

[size=large][font=Times New Roman]I could have predicted this response (i.e., authors being upset to have it changed). As an editor of many business books, I find it unusual if an author [i]doesn't[/i] try to capitalize his or her pet idea or other nouns deemed important: "We use a Refined Spreadshe

[Forum] gender-neutral pronouns

I agree, I agree, we need gender-neutral pronouns. And I say this as someone who works as an editor, who cares passionately about language, and who gets really annoyed at the sight of misused apostrophes, incorrect verb-subject agreements, etc. (And also as someone who does NOT want to return to usi

[Forum] Approaching fifty years of editing...balloons, please!

I've been a copy editor since 1966. My real name is David Wetzel, and I worked as chief editor and publications director for the Colorado Historical Society for twenty-five years, retiring in 2006. And through it all--researching, writing, and publishing--I'm still a pencil editor (now a screen edit

[Forum] Approaching fifty years of editing...balloons, please!

I've been a copy editor since 1966. My real name is David Wetzel, and I worked as chief editor and publications director for the Colorado Historical Society for twenty-five years, retiring in 2006. And through it all--researching, writing, and publishing--I'm still a pencil editor (now a screen edit